How to get lazy people to do what you want, Being a style guru and December is here!

Well it is a splendid morning in Durban; the sun is shining and the weather is sweet, yah (respect to Bob Marley). Waking up to a day that has already been warm and bright for over an hour at six thirty sends me straight back to school holidays as a child. There is something indescribable about the smell, feel and colour of the world that makes me think of watching test cricket all morning or riding our bikes around the suburb; lazing a day away in the pool, or at waterworld if you can remember that wonderful place, and then finishing off with a braai. Of course all this December-ness also comes with the promise of Christmas and loads of new toys! It was the best time of year and I'm totally ready for this to be a good one too.

I'm getting ready to head up to the Spirit of Adventure camp to spend the next three days with Northwood school's new prefect group. We'll dig into some ideas about leading teams, disciplining trouble-makers and setting some good objectives for their year. We'll also make sure they bond as a group so, aside from all the climbing, walking, abseiling, padling and assault coursing they will do, we'll be sleeping out in the reserve under the stars tonight. I'll be out with them and it promises to be a beautiful evening!

I'll also begin some training for new instructors this weekend. If the prefects are looking ahead to a big 2011 the future instructors have an even more daunting yet exciting year ahead of them. They have much to learn before they are up to our standards but we have found a group with great potential so I'm looking forward to getting them started.

One final thought; Wives trying to get their husbands to be less lazy about house chores and managers trying to get employees to less useless about the finer details of their work both make the same mistakes. Both end up simply berrating, cajolling, punishing, shouting or trying to bribe the offender by with holding other nice things, wives in particular. All this does is strain the relationship and re-enforce the fact that the worker, or husband, in question is slack. Once you believe you are slack at an unpleasant task it becomes even less likely that you will have much enery for it.

Now the nagging wife or manager may reply; "Well that so-and-so is slack in that area, don't make it my fault. I'm going to keep on making their life difficult untill they get themselves sorted out." I have sympathy for this point of view and it may well not be your fault that person X is dropping the ball but it is your problem and by being on their case about it you're only making it worse. "So if I can't remind him that he's left his socks on the floor again and point out that he promised he would start doing a load of washing each day but, just like everything else in this house, he hasn't done it; what can I do? must I just leave it and do all the work myself?" askes the wife. That's a good question. Let me answer it like this.

 I moved to a new city for university and I went to a new church. I had a blank slate there and people were getting to know me for the first time. I had never been particularly stylish in dress untill that point but early on in my time there I managed, somehow, to get a reputation as a relatively well dressed guy. Once you believe people expect you to look good you naturally put some effort into it. This reputation grew as I started to think about what I was going to wear for more than the time it took to reach into my cupboard. As innevitably happens when you start thinking about your 'look' I very quickly started to wear slightly unusual
(occasionaly ridiculous) things. When most were happy with trainers, jeans and a t-shirt, I would have white leather shoes beneath my jeans and an old tweed jacket over my t-shirt. Somehow this was ok for me because I had stumled into a reputation as a trend-setter of sorts, "Paul can pull it off", people would say.

All of this is interesting because I witnessed a very marked change in behaviour over a six month period that is a very clear line in the sand seperating my whole adolescance from my life forever after, yes I'm still over-dressing to this day. This thing of our reputation, or other's expectation of us, defining what they actually get from us is very real and managers, wives and everybody else trying to change the behaviour of your people should pay attention to it. As long as the worker knows that failure is expected they will feel very bad, berate themselves and appologise but very few will be able to pick themselves up and prove you wrong. They will do it when they remember, or if you've threatened particularly well thet day or if they feel sorry for you. What doesn't change is the fact that they will do as little as possible, in that area, to get by. If you can give them belief that they are actually good at it and that you're expecting them to succeed every time, you watch the difference it makes.

If the wife were to stop nagging about washing and house work and ask the husband to come and help with dishes, then compliment him on how good and thorough he is on the greasey pans, then thank him for the fact that he actually does the dishes pretty often and (and this is important) he is actually much better than the average hausband at pulling his weight in the house he will start to see himself differently because he realises that you see him differently. It is then very easy to say, 'employee/husband I know job x has slipped your mind recently but can we discuss a way to make the system better so that you can be powerful in that area like you are in this area here?'

It may seem like nagging is easier but I'm certain that helping people to see themselves as above average at something and letting them believe we're expecting that from them is much more effective that reminding them how weak thay are. Be cunning like all good leaders and get creative!

What do you think?

A begining

Greetings!

At long last this blog is up and running. Praise the Lord! My work, at Spirit of Adventure, takes me to incredible places, allows me to meet wonderful and insightful people and constantly puts me in positions which are challenging and force me to have an enquiring mind. The idea behind this blog is to reflect on the adventures we're having and allow you to experience them too. It will be loads of fun I'm sure.

Teaching leadership is a particularly complicated idea, especially because many would say that leadership can't be taught and some even suggest it can't be learnt. One should be very suspicious of anyone claiming that they can teach you everything you need to know about leadership, it isn't an exact science. Despite that, we have been dedicating ourselves to the study of leadership since 1994. What we aim to do is give people real experiences of working in groups and leading them through adventure activities in breath-taking parts of the world. We then debrief or 'review' what happened, bringing in the best theories and most useful handles we can find. I trust this process allows folks to leave or courses feeling a little better prepared for when the moment comes for them to step up and respond to the call of leadership which we will all hear at least once in our lives.

Jump on for the ride if you feel like thrashing out some of the most important questions about life, relationships and the art of working with other human beings, we'll throw in a good dose of humour and open mindedness with dollops of controversy and perhaps the odd spot of wisdom.

I'm heading off to Shongweni Game reserve now to join a group of students who are on a course with us at the moment.

Speak to you soon.

Paul